Malcolm and Hoshi: New Dawn
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: 'Enterprise' has been recalled to Earth as the threat of war with the Romulans deepens. Those of the crew not involved in the diplomatic discussions have been granted shore leave. Rating for non-graphic adult material. Author's Note: This story is dedicated to everyone who enjoyed the 'Missing Scenes' series, and particularly those who demanded a coda to it.
1. Chapter 1

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended.**

**Beta'd by BookQ36 and VesperRegina, to whom all due thanks!**

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Years of having to wake fully alert on missions had taught Malcolm Reed how to almost anticipate the alarm clock in his sleep patterns. If it was important that he wake at any specified hour, no matter how early, then he could be confident that his body would be already emerging from slumber by the time the chronometer beeped to alert him. Today was no different.

"Time to get up, sweetheart," he said, stretching.

Hoshi, however, had not enjoyed, or rather endured, the same hard training. As he touched the base of the bedside lamp to provide orientation in the unfamiliar environment of their hotel room, he looked down at her and found that she was anything but alert. She was rumpled and sleepy and kissable, so he turned over, snuggled down and began applying unfair tactics to get her to wake up.

"Umm... Mal_colm_...!"

"Yes?" he replied, although not very clearly, because it's hard to speak properly when your mouth's already occupied.

"Do you _always _wake up horny at this hour of the morning?"

"Only when I'm with you." It wouldn't have been really appropriate on ops. The thought made him grin; pity knew what nickname the team would have slapped on him if he'd made a habit of that.

For several minutes they both enjoyed his method of waking her up fully, but then she said she had to go to the bathroom. He did too, of course, but it was 'ladies first'. Then they both had to shower; usually they'd have shared one, but that would have risked it becoming protracted, which today they couldn't afford. So he showered as quickly as he could and set about making breakfast while Hoshi took her turn.

Normally, of course, they'd have got up at a more reasonable hour and eaten downstairs in the restaurant. Today, however, given that they were going to be out and away well before dawn, it was hardly reasonable to expect a cooked breakfast to be provided. He'd had a word with the hotel staff, and the small refrigerator in their room contained what he'd asked for – butter and cheese. A loaf of brown soda bread on a cutting board with a knife and plates rested on a sideboard, and there were already provisions for making tea and coffee.

He worked swiftly, and by the time his fiancée emerged from the bathroom their makeshift breakfast was set out ready on a small table. If there had seemed any point to doing so, he'd have taken it out on the balcony, but the world outside was still dark and the moon had set. He'd opened the French door, however, and left it ajar so that the ceaseless soft susurration of the waves whispered in, along with eddies of cool, salt-laden air.

"Brrr!" Still slightly damp from the shower, Hoshi's skin was more sensitive to the slight chill than it would ordinarily have been. She whipped a fluffy dressing gown from its hanger and wrapped it around herself, though not before accidentally giving him a view that in different circumstances would certainly have merited further investigation. Her sly smile when he returned his gaze to her face made him wonder if it had been so accidental.

"Is this all we're having?" she complained playfully, sitting down and picking up her plate, on which three slices of bread, butter and cheese now rested.

"Emergency rations. Fat, carbohydrate and protein. Eat it and be quiet, Ensign."

She pulled a face at him and began eating daintily.

He started on his own, but the sound of the sea was making him restless. After a few moments he picked up his plate and moved to the French door, where he looked out across the darkness of the ocean beyond the balcony. The faint radiance of a sky pocked with stars was reflected in the surface of the water, and far out towards the horizon a lighthouse blinked once and then a second time before retreating into invisibility. Twenty seconds elapsed between each double flash; he'd timed it yesterday evening. Ships no longer needed lighthouses, of course; automated navigation kept shipping well clear of underwater hazards. Nevertheless some countries kept to the tradition, and it was good to watch its steady, reassuring blink, knowing that it kept the faith with all those centuries where only visual aids had kept seagoing vessels safe.

There was movement behind him, and then Hoshi's arms slipped around his waist.

"This means an awful lot to you, doesn't it?" she said softly.

"Yes," he admitted. He'd already told her something of the reasons, when planning this trip back towards the misty islands where he'd been born. They'd already visited England, where he'd shown her the house where he'd been raised and the schools and University he'd attended; now they were in Ireland, where Maddie was currently working on a restoration project on Dublin Cathedral. But today's outing was something deeply personal, a visit he'd long hoped to share with the woman he meant to make his wife.

"Then we'd better get ready. Time's wasting." She kissed him and then went to start getting dressed.

He did the same, though he raised a sardonic eyebrow when he saw that she was putting on make-up. She already knew that where they were going would have very few visitors indeed at such an ungodly hour of the morning, so why she was bothering to impress a few seagulls – which were about the only souls they were likely to encounter – was beyond him. Still, this was one of the womanly mysteries which he'd had to learn to live with. She'd apparently taken no notice whatsoever of his informing her that without any make-up on at all – and better still, without anything else either – she was still the most beautiful woman in the world for him.

As they slipped out of the hotel front door into the silent street, his chronometer assured him that they were in good time. He knew pretty accurately how long it would take them to make the climb, but he'd had to factor in that they'd be moving over rough ground in poor lighting conditions. The moon would have helped, if it had still been up; the starlight did something, but not much. He sighed inwardly for conditions like those on worlds in more densely star-populated regions of the Milky Way, some of which _Enterprise _had visited. It had been a long time since he'd regarded Earth's night sky as 'full of bright stars', though he still thought of it as beautiful, because it was the sky of home.

They walked rapidly along the dark streets. It wasn't long until the buildings fell back and gave way to more open country. There was very little traffic along the road they were now following; only the odd flitter sped past, with its running lights warning pedestrians of its presence. Flitters too had automatic navigation, so there was no need for them to have headlights; you simply keyed in your destination and the onboard computers did the rest.

"Have you heard from Trip?" enquired Hoshi. "The last time I heard from Travis, they were cooking up this crazy scheme between them to run some modifications on his flitter. I think they must be kind of bored."

Malcolm grunted. "They were and they did. Travis disabled the nav-computer and fitted a manual steering wheel, and Trip redesigned the electronics. And like the pair of nit-wits they are, they used the HQ flitter-park as a test track."

"Oh, no." She gurgled. "Let me guess."

"Admiral Gardner's."

"NO!"

The captain suggested it might be a good idea if they didn't show their faces at HQ for a little while."

"As in, not till they ship out again?"

"Something like that." He grinned.

A gap in the wall on their left beckoned.

"This is where we turn off."

"Malcolm." Hoshi peered at the track in front of them. "I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this goes through _woodland. _In the _dark. _And I'm not trying to be a party-pooper here, but aren't we risking a couple of broken ankles?"

He grinned. "A tactical officer is always prepared." He delved into his rucksack and brought out two pairs of _Enterprise_'s night-vision goggles. "I even got the captain's permission to borrow them."

"I'd love to know what reason you gave him." She gave him the puppy-dog eyes.

"I said they were a vital part of a romantic operation." He contrived to keep his face straight, with something of an effort.

She giggled. "I'd love to have seen his face."

"It _was _rather comical." As a matter of fact, Archer had just been taking his first swallow of coffee at breakfast, and had choked on it. Malcolm had timed his request perfectly to achieve that effect, though his expressions of remorse afterwards had been beautifully simulated. Even now, few people on board ship knew that he had a lively sense of humour; his keeping that fact very well concealed was one way of ensuring that his practical jokes hit with maximum impact.

The goggles made a huge difference, of course. Now she'd be able to see the track clearly, just as he could: winding off to the left towards the belt of woodland whose trees he could now make out individually as opposed to forming one big block of darkness.

"I knew I put my make-up on for something," she remarked, glancing up at him cheekily.

"It doesn't stop me appreciating the rest of the view." He kissed her lingeringly, even though the goggles bumped a bit. Then, realising that time was getting on and didn't stop for snogging, he led the way on to the track.

It was just as well that he'd thought to bring the goggles. Although reasonably level, the path was only of flattened earth and therefore had tussocks of grass in it as well as the odd large stone firmly embedded here and there. Out in the open they could have managed well enough, now their natural night vision had adapted to the loss of even the minimal street lighting, but once they got into the woods they'd have had to walk with extreme care. The path was open enough, leading upwards in a series of lazy zig-zags through the trees, but water coursing down it when it rained had worn grooves in the earth, and around the edges trails of brambles lurked to snag the unwary traveller.

"Onions!" said Hoshi, startled, stopping just inside the woodland's edge. "I can smell onions! Or is it garlic?"

"Ramsons. Wild garlic. Edible in a salad, if you're interested." He pointed to the thick green leaves, broken where they'd been trodden on. "Though I wouldn't recommend those particular ones."

"I'd take some back for T'Pol but I don't suppose they'd last till we see her again."

"Probably not." _Enterprise_ had been recalled because of the latest rumours about the Romulans, along with several other vessels. He hadn't bothered looking up for the ship in orbit, however, because she was off at the Jupiter yards getting upgrades. Captain Archer was still at HQ, immersed in official talks; T'Pol had gone to Vulcan, presumably for more of the same. The rest of the crew were taking advantage of the lull to snatch their accumulated leave allowances, which was why he and Hoshi had caught a Transatlantic flight and were spending a few days in the British Isles.

The two of them began following the track upwards. It was an easy ascent, the looping of the path helping to keep the gradient gradual. After a while, they reached the upper edge of the wood, and found a gateway that led onto a far broader trail that bore straight upwards towards the summit of the hill. This path was uncompromising, seeming to have been imposed on the land by some unfriendly giant hand, unlike the way through the woods which ambled to and fro as if more interested in the journey than in actually getting anywhere.

"This is new," said Malcolm in a low voice; more from a mild reluctance to disturb the silence unnecessarily than from any expectation that there was anyone around to hear him. "When I was here before, the path just kept going off to the left. I remember it, because it went through a load of gorse and bracken, and the horse-flies bit the b... bit me a lot."

He sensed, rather than saw, her smile, because she put her head down to hide it. His attempts – sometimes rather belated – to keep his language relatively polite in the presence of a lady, in accordance with the Reed tradition, weren't always successful. When ladies were not present to be offended, Royal Navy slang had been in common usage in his childhood household; for example, it was not at all unusual to hear a report of high winds in from the Atlantic being described in such picturesque terms as 'It's blowing a bastard off the Pond.'

"Well, there shouldn't be any flies about at all this early in the morning. That's _one_ good reason for getting up before dawn. Though there'd better be another one, Malcolm Reed, or you're going to hear about it for the rest of the day!"

He smiled down at her gently. "I'm confident you'll think it's worth it."

"Malcolm." She took his hand. "If this means as much to you as I think it does, then whatever it is, I'll think it's more than worth it."

A glance forwards and upwards told him that time was getting on. The sky that had been uniformly dark was now slightly paler, and the skyline of treetops above and in front of him was now visible against it. "We'd better get a move on, if you're up for it."

"I can keep up." They grinned at each other, and set off at a good pace up the path. Now that they were in the open they had far less need for the goggles, but they were still useful to show up unevennesses underfoot.

The top of the path gave way to broken rocky ground, where a few sparse coniferous trees made a copse, and then beyond that their way suddenly narrowed and led between high stands of gorse bushes. Their speed dropped accordingly. Malcolm took the lead, and did his best to hold back the more aggressive gorse twigs from whipping back after him and hitting Hoshi – though she seemed more worried by the potential presence of spiders than the possible scratches from the spiny bushes.

"You've gone through all we did in outer space and you're worried about _spiders?_" he teased.

"Not many of the things we met out there got into my clothes by accident and started tickling me."

"Well I did, but that wasn't by accident."

"No, and you weren't tickling, as I recall."

"I certainly wasn't trying to. I had much more interesting things on my mind."

"We all know what's on your mind."

"Yes. Explosions. I'm very good at causing explosions. I believe you found that out fairly shortly."

She burst into giggles. "I was never able to go back into the Observation Lounge afterwards without thinking of it."

"I was never able to go into the Observation Lounge afterwards without getting a –"

_"MALCOLM!"_

He threw back his head and laughed. It felt wonderful, just being able to laugh aloud for joy and not care who heard it. "Come on. Just the last bit now, and then you can have a rest."

"A rest! I'll bet I beat you to the top."

"I'll bet you don't."

When they reached the far side of the gorse patch the track got a little steeper and more treacherous, until it joined what looked like the remains of an old cart track buried among the waist-high bracken. How anyone had ever got a wheeled vehicle up here was something that boggled the imagination, but the rusted remnants of what had once been a gate still adhered to a stone pillar, proving that the track had once led somewhere.

"Nothing there. We go this way." The path took a sharp left turn, and a minute or so later emerged onto relatively open ground, where it began bending strongly to the right around a large rocky outcrop.

"Race you to the top!" cried Hoshi, obviously sensing by the levelling of the gradient that they hadn't far to go now.

"Hoshi, you'll break your ankles in this light! _Hoshi–!" _But it was too late. She'd already sprinted ahead, obviously pinning far too much faith in the ability of her goggles in the thin pre-dawn light to show her the way clearly.

He broke into a run after her, and stopped two paces into it when loud noises from the rucksack he was carrying reminded him that he'd brought up a bottle of wine and two glasses. He'd wedged them apart with a few napkins before setting out, but his preparations hadn't been adequate to withstand the jouncing about at the run. He'd be lucky now if he wasn't carrying a bottle of wine and several dozen broken shards.

"If you break both your legs don't come running to me!" he shouted unromantically after her, the irony quite deliberate. He squatted and opened the neck of the rucksack, feeling the contents anxiously and with extreme care, expecting at any moment to feel a sharp edge slice into his fingertips. He didn't seriously expect her to come to any harm, and he didn't care if she did get to the summit before him, but he desperately wanted the glasses to be intact. It was part of the plan he'd been evolving in his mind, and every detail mattered.

Whatever guardian angel was on duty in that particular part of the world on that particular morning had evidently intervened on his behalf. By some miracle the glasses were both intact. He felt more deeply into the recesses of the rucksack, and found two other objects. One was a scanner (also borrowed from _Enterprise_, much to the captain's added bemusement), and the other was something he'd had delivered very secretly to the hotel the day before, and smuggled into their room while Hoshi was enjoying an hour in the sauna downstairs. He might have been able to bear taking turns to swig wine from the bottle, but the contents of this particular package featured in a plan that would have been completely ruined by the merest possibility that it might have become contaminated by slivers of broken glass from above.

Feeling slightly shaky with relief, he straightened up and began walking more sedately along the path. Exactly as he'd remembered, it curved around the outcrop, passing a low white wall that protected walkers from the drop on the left hand side, and then opened on to a low saddle of about fifty metres between this rocky height and another, nearer the sea, which was the one he was aiming for. A slight figure was picking her way up the rocks of that other height, evidently thinking he was close behind her.

"Silly mare," he said fondly, watching her scramble to the top and look around to see where he was.

"Yoo-hoo!" Her voice came across to him. "Told you I'd beat you!"

"I was handicapped!" he yelled back, lifting the rucksack. "Take your bloody goggles off before you go blind!" For now that they were at the very top of the hill, the light was growing stronger every minute, and he followed his own advice in a hurry. The sensors built into the goggles had been compensating for the reduced demand, but they were incapable of stopping working altogether.

He paused to allow his own eyesight to adjust, and then quickly found a way down off the path onto the saddle, which was covered in thin turf dotted with patches of heather. Having satisfactorily established her superiority, Hoshi came back to meet him just as he reached the foot of the last piece of rocky ground before the top.

"I didn't turn around," she said breathlessly. "I thought you'd be right behind me."

"I have my reasons," he responded, and kissed her. "Come on."

They scrambled up together, laughing, and moments later they emerged on to the stony plateau at the summit.

He caught his breath. The view was just as he remembered it: the coast curving away north in a long, softly sweeping bay, until some point of land cropped out to end the bay abruptly. Further north, far beyond that, a long and far larger jut of land reached out into the sea, its darkness relieved by lights now starting to look thin as the pre-dawn light began flooding into the sky. When one looked back, the town they'd come from was an indistinct area of half-seen shapes, threaded with sparse rows of street-lights, and beyond them fold on fold of hills was growing out of the darkness, putting on the first infinitely faint suggestions of green. Southward, the coastal massif continued for at least several kilometres, merging into the dim distance.

At the very highest point of the plateau stood an old concrete plinth. Stumps of corroded metal rods in the middle of it said that one day, long ago, something had stood here, but whatever it had been had vanished long since, probably at some point during one of the wars which had taken Earth's civilisation to the brink of oblivion.

At a guess, sunrise was perhaps ten minutes away. He led Hoshi quickly to the seaward side of the mount, finding a grassy apron that offered comfortable lying, and they both sat down. He put the rucksack between them and brought out the bottle of wine and the glasses. The other things would remain in it for a while longer.

"You think of everything." She smiled lovingly at him.

"Wait till I make sure I've brought the corkscrew before you say that." He pretended to hunt through his jacket pockets, and waited till her expression became one of comical apprehension before finding it miraculously in his jeans pocket instead. "Oh! Fancy it being in there!"

"Malcolm Reed, you're a rotten tease!"

"Oh, I'm a tease, am I? And what were YOU doing in that dressing gown this morning?" He grinned, and she slapped him playfully. "Watch out, if I spill this I'll make you pay for it."

"You could try." Fortunately she was suitably sobered by the threat to withhold further hostilities, settling instead for sensibly holding the glasses steady while he poured the wine into them – the turf seemed level enough, but there was no point in taking risks.

The glasses filled, he handed one to her, set the bottle and the rucksack aside, and moved over to put his arm around her. In front of them the light was growing ever stronger, and the sea was taking on colour: mostly green, infinitely dark, patterned here and there with tiny pale frills of foam. He didn't taste the wine, but sat looking down into it for a moment before he began to speak.

"I came here once before, years ago," he said, in a quiet voice. "I'd been ... in a dark place for a long time. I felt lost. Dirty. Hopeless. I was someone I didn't want to be, but I couldn't imagine any way to change. Every so often I'd cut loose, go on the rip, get more damaged and get reeled in again, just because the ... they were the only people who wanted what I was.

"Then one time when I'd slipped the Section's leash I came to see Maddie. I don't know what I thought I was doing, what it could possibly have achieved. Apart from upsetting her, of course, but I was past caring about that... I got on the train, smashed out of my brain; passed out, missed the station and woke up down there." He nodded in the direction of the town. "I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. I just wandered about, lost, in the middle of the night, wanting everything to be over. I even tried wading into the sea, but that didn't work." He stopped, laughing painfully. He'd been too afraid of drowning even to commit suicide.

Her arm tightened around his waist, but she said nothing. He forced himself to continue.

"I don't know why I climbed up here. Why does a drunk do anything? Because it was there, I suppose. It's bloody steep in parts, coming up the front way. In hindsight I'm amazed I didn't fall down and break my neck. But I got up here somehow. Stinking and snivelling. I was a right wreck."

He stared out to sea. A line of 'mare's tail' clouds had appeared just above the horizon, and they were now tinted with gold. The clear bowl of the sky had taken on an apricot hue.

"Anyway, I got up here. I sat down just about here and cried, because everything was so beautiful and I was so wrong and I didn't want to be part of anything any more. And then the sun came up.

"I knew you're not supposed to look directly at it, so as soon as it was over the horizon and in the sea-haze I looked up, above it. And there was this one bright object, too big to be a star. I thought it was a planet. Then I realized it was moving. And by the size, it was a starship."

A spark of gold now lit on the horizon and a path of fire ignited on the dark surface of the sea. Somewhere on the cliffs below them, a seagull cried, its voice piercing and remote.

"And I felt – I've never known why – that somehow, somebody was showing me something. That there was a way out. That I had to 'face the light and let the shadows fall behind me'. That I could have a future."

He turned away from the brightening, dazzling gold and looked into her eyes. "I never dreamed that that future could hold anything as precious as you, Hoshi. But now I have you I'll never let you go, never let you down. I'll love you till the day I die. And that's why I wanted to bring you here, to tell you that and make you that promise. Hoshi Sato, I swear to you, I love you with everything that I am. You're the whole world to me."

Tears were leaking down her face, for his pain and his redemption; for the moving star above the sunrise that had offered him hope when he had nothing. He kissed them away.

Then they drank the wine, which still had a little of the chill left on it from a night in the refrigerator; and though in defiance of the gathering threat of war their first toast was to their future happiness, they clinked glasses afterwards to 'absent friends'. The sun rose further, and although it was now impossible to look at it directly they shared the joy of seeing every moment how the jewel colours of the sea brightened and changed, and how the mare's tail clouds slowly grew more and more attenuated and then vanished altogether. It was going to be a beautiful day.

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	2. Chapter 2

Malcolm tipped up his glass, swallowing the last of the wine in it, and decided that it was time to put the second half of his plan into action. Turning aside from Hoshi, who was happily watching the tiny pale sail of a distant yacht, he rolled over and pulled the scanner out of the rucksack. He'd keyed in the settings the night before, and watched with deep satisfaction as the readings confirmed what he'd hoped they would: that he and Hoshi had the hilltop completely to themselves.

He was aware, of course, of the presence of scanning satellites in orbit. There was an extremely remote possibility that a camera somewhere might pick them up, but the likelihood of anyone paying attention to such a deserted spot was virtually nonexistent, and if by any chance they did, the distance was too great for detail. Besides which, right at that moment, he couldn't give a damn.

He set the scanner atop a lump of rock behind them. A small 'ping' confirmed that the programme he'd installed was working. If anyone came within a kilometre of them, it would give him instant warning.

The sound attracted his companion's attention. She turned her head, and looked in puzzlement at the scanner. Then she looked at his expression. Then, enchantingly, she blushed. It made him want to kiss her in even more places than he'd already thought of, and he'd thought of a remarkable number already. "Malcolm! You want to ..._here?_"

"I believe seagulls are very broad-minded." Which was a bloody good thing, in view of what he intended to do with the contents of the other container.

He brought it out, and removed the lid. "You won't believe how much you're going to enjoy this."

She looked at the bowl of crushed pineapple, and smiled, doubtless remembering all the trouble she'd had to go to in order to find out his favourite food, back in the heady first days of the voyage aboard _Enterprise. _ "I hope you've brought a spoon."

"I don't need a spoon." He turned his stare up to maximum. "And I never said _you _were going to be eating any."

"But you said – MALCOLM!" As the penny finally dropped, she blushed even more.

He put the container on the turf, and lowered his head to it. He used his tongue with the utmost delicacy to scoop a small amount of the sweet fruit out of it, watching her from under his brows as he did so.

For some reason this appeared to affect her powerfully. He'd rather hoped it might. It was certainly doing things for him; lying flat on the turf had suddenly become extremely uncomfortable. He'd have to adopt appropriate measures when circumstances required.

"Yes," he said softly. "That's exactly what I brought it for. I'm going to eat every last bit of it. In due course."

In a remarkably short time after that they were locked together, kissing passionately. He was aching to start eating pineapple, but he had interesting things to do before he could get around to that part of the proceedings. Aided by the fact that her tracksuit top had mysteriously come undone, he began kissing down her neck – she had a beautiful neck, he told her, just in case she hadn't been listening when he mentioned it on any of a score of previous occasions; and – no, he'd save them for a bit; and did she know, he continued, that she had the most gorgeous bellybutton?

Apparently he had told her before. Either that or she wasn't really interested in him paying compliments to her bellybutton right now. Which led him back to the parts he'd decided to save for later, which were so delectable that really nothing but the thought of pineapple could have induced him to pay them less than the full attention they deserved, though they still got quite a lot.

_Pineapple. Want. Pineapple. Now._ He rather thought Hoshi did too, to go by the way she was kicking her tracksuit bottoms down. And – oh, my. He'd thought the fluffy dressing-gown was a revelation. Now, where was that container of pineapple? Thanks to her foresight, he wouldn't even have the bother of getting her knickers off first.

Hoshi was hitting his shoulder. _Oh, you just wait till I get going, my girl. You'll never walk past a greengrocer's again without going weak at the knees_.

..._ 'Shuttle'? ..._

Hoshi Sato, the woman with the supersensitive hearing.

What the – was a –ing shuttle doing in _this _–ing neck of the woods at _this _–ing hour?

In the effort to act the gentleman he'd been brought up to be, Malcolm only mouthed the words that sprang to mind as he hastily helped to restore his fiancée to a state of respectability. Screaming every one of the round Anglo-Saxon derivatives in his wide vocabulary, however, wouldn't have even come close to expressing the emotions aroused by actually _having had his fingers in that damned pineapple_ when it dawned on him that the impacts of his beloved's fist on his shoulders hadn't actually been encouragement to get on with the dessert course.

A minute or two later even he could hear the familiar note of the shuttle engine. He turned over, shading his eyes to stare up for the silver shape. Still at enough of a distance for no details to be visible; the scanners would have picked up their biosigns, but thankfully even if whoever was aboard had used their enhanced forward cameras his body would have been between them and Hoshi.

He watched it swoop closer, not bothering to move. Why should he? He was on leave, and with the woman he loved. No public morality had been outraged, and if the seagulls had been offended they bloody well knew what they could do with their complaints.

"It's not one of ours," said Hoshi. For a moment he wondered how she knew – at this angle the name on the side wasn't visible. Then he realised she knew the sound of their own shuttlepods. Another point for her super-hearing.

"It wouldn't be. She's not due back till next week." Then Trip would want to carry out field tests of the new engine upgrades, and he'd be expected to do the same with the weaponry. Once upon a time the prospect would have had him practically frothing with excitement. Now, for some reason, he hardly felt able to summon up more than a weary sense of duty. The anti-fraternization regulations meant that when he and Hoshi could be married – whenever that would be – they would have to leave _Enterprise_; afterwards, if fate permitted, they'd both take up duties back on Earth, he in R&D and she in teaching again. If the threatened war materialised, of course, things might turn out very differently; the flagship of the Fleet would have duties that no later commitment could supersede. But in the meantime, he was holding on to hope, however slender it might grow as the days passed. He'd realised with some surprise that he was actually looking forward to the change, even though it might not be as exciting as exploring the far reaches of the galaxy; and although he'd found a family of friends aboard the ship, he was also looking forward to a new life with Hoshi and the hope of presently starting a family of their own. And he knew that Hoshi was delighted at the thought of going back to teaching.

Apprehension stirred as it occurred to him to wonder why the shuttlepod was coming for them – because the flight path unmistakably indicated an intended landing. In ordinary circumstances, if leave had been cancelled for any reason, they'd have received a summons via the hotel's reception to return to HQ. If it was so urgent that a shuttle had to be sent, he rather feared something serious must have kicked off. His stomach plunged with the anxiety that events on the war front might have moved faster than anyone had calculated; and bitterness followed the apprehension, that this had to happen on _this_ day, of all days.

The shuttle slowed and began its descent. It was obviously aiming for the saddle at the top of the hill, where there was sufficient space for it to land safely, although it would take a skilled pilot to put it down without a jolt on the uneven surface.

Grimly accepting that duty called – at least they'd had the sunrise – Malcolm packed away everything that he'd brought up here, stood up and helped Hoshi to her feet. As they crossed the summit and began looking for the safest way down, the shuttle landed as lightly as a feather.

They were perhaps half way to the flatter ground when the gull-wing door lifted. The sea breeze stirred the hair of two officers looking out through the hatchway: both of them instantly familiar. Their faces didn't seem to be wearing the solemnity he'd have expected if some kind of crisis was imminent. Far from it; they were both grinning from ear to ear.

"The captain? And _Trip?" _Malcolm halted in astonishment. He glanced at Hoshi, and his bewilderment grew, for she wasn't looking surprised at all. As a matter of fact, she was wearing the expression of a cat which hasn't just got away with the cream, but has successfully absconded with the whole bloody dairy.

His perplexity was only increased by the sight of Travis and Liz – Travis's presence explained the delicacy with which the shuttle had been put down, but why Crewman Cutler should be here was completely beyond him.

"I get the feeling I'm the only one around here who has no idea what's going on," he muttered.

"Not for long!" Hoshi smiled up at him saucily.

"Malcolm!" Captain Archer stepped down from the shuttle and greeted him cheerfully. It was at this point that it became apparent that both he and Trip were in their dress uniforms, which simply added to the air of utter unreality.

"Sir." Disregarding the fact that he was on leave and out of uniform, the lieutenant automatically assumed a parade rest posture. He was aware that it probably looked somewhat odd, considering he was standing rather awkwardly on a patch of rocks, and that a spring of heather had got up his trouser leg and was tickling the skin just above his left ankle; but the size of the grin on Trip's face was filling him with a sense of formless apprehension that quite obliterated any capacity to care about what he looked like just then.

The captain stepped easily past him and climbed the couple of metres to the summit, where he looked around with evident approval for what he saw.

"Nice view, Malcolm," he said casually. "Got a few minutes to spare?"

_Well, I was quite enjoying the view I was having before you and your bloody shuttle showed up, but ... _He could hardly make that sort of response to his commanding officer, however. More bewildered than ever, he swallowed. "I, er ... yes, sir, of course. Whatever you need me to do."

Archer turned around and looked down at him; a smile played around his mouth. "Well, a little bird told me this is kind of a special place for you. So I was thinking you might just like me to do you that little 'favor' here that you asked me about a while ago on board ship."

Reed's jaw dropped.

He and Hoshi had gone to the captain shortly after the ugly episode with Terra Prime and asked him to marry them. It had apparently needed a lot of permissions and paperwork, and whatever had to be got through hadn't been sorted by the time they came home. Or at least, that's what he'd assumed. Now, it was dawning on him that the delays which had seemed to him just another manifestation of Starfleet bureaucracy had in fact been nothing of the kind.

He looked down at Hoshi. At least she had the grace to look guilty, or at least as guilty as it's possible to look when you're grinning all over your face. "Would you happen to know anything about this, Ms Sato?" he enquired somewhat acidly, struggling to control the answering grin that was trying to take over his own face.

She giggled, which was all the answer he really needed, but her expression sobered and softened into love. "I wanted it to be somewhere really special for you, Malcolm."

"Hey! Hey! No kissin' the bride till afterwards!" shouted Trip, making shooing movements. "Come on, your clothes are in the shuttle!"

The two of them separated reluctantly. "'Clothes'?" repeated Malcolm, bewildered.

"If you want me to officiate, that's one of the conditions," said Captain Archer, smiling. "Regulations say I can perform the ceremony for members of my crew when under my command. And if you're under my command, you've got to be in uniform, Mister."

Reed exhaled. It wasn't exactly what he'd envisaged wearing on the happiest day of his life, but what the hell!

"I can't promise not to laugh if you come out wearing a coverall and a veil," he warned as they walked to the shuttle, where Liz and Travis had disappeared again, presumably finishing off whatever preparations were appropriate. "It wouldn't work." He leaned closer as they got to the hatch. "_But at least you know what we'll be having for our first meal together,_" he whispered. "_Though I suppose we'd better wait till we're alone."_

An emergency blanket had been secured from one side of the shuttle to the other. Liz whisked Hoshi into the forward side of it, Trip and Travis pulled him into the rearward. A full set of his own dress uniform (not his coverall) was sitting on one of the benches, neatly folded, with a set of blues on top of it. They even had a pair of his boots and socks ready.

He'd already showered that morning (how long ago it seemed now!), but he allowed them to strip off his leisure clothes and help him into his uniform, applying squirts of deodorant in the appropriate places in case of any attack of last-minute nerves. The almost incessant whispered advice they supplied at the same time was completely unnecessary, but he took it in the spirit in which it was intended. More giggles from the other side of the curtain indicated that Hoshi was receiving much the same from Liz, although that was just as superfluous.

Part way through the preparations, however, a thought struck him that stopped him in his tracks, horror printed on his face.

"Now don't say you've changed your mind!" Trip wagged an admonishing finger at him. "After we've been to all the trouble we have to set this up, you're marryin' that woman if I have to make it a phase pistol weddin'!"

"Rings!" Malcolm hissed. "How can I marry her if we've got no rings?"

With the insufferably-pleased-with-himself expression of a conjurer producing a starship out of a matchbox, Trip delved in his breast pocket and took out a soft piece of scarlet material, carefully folded. He opened it to show two matching rings, both of brushed duranium to match Hoshi's engagement ring, which the ensign had proudly worn around the ship after her engagement to Malcolm had finally become public knowledge. "They'll be the right size, too. Got the measurements from your medical scans in Sickbay. Phlox was tickled to death."

"God, I wish I'd thought of something that simple when I was trying to get the size for the engagement ring." Although even if he had thought of it, his innate compulsion for secrecy would have prevented him from taking Phlox into his confidence on so intimate a matter; besides which, the challenge of getting the measurement he needed by covert tactics had appealed to him. It had taken him some minutes of agonising stealth to slip a loop of string around Hoshi's finger without waking her, long after she'd fallen asleep in his bunk one night. He'd suffered less anxiety the first time he'd disarmed a bomb.

Captain Archer looked in through the hatch after a couple of minutes. He had what was almost certainly a prompt card in his hand. "How long does it take to get a couple of officers ready for their wedding around here?" he asked.

"Can't say about the bride, but I guess the bridegroom's about ready to go," said Trip, polishing a few imaginary fingerprints from Malcolm's rank pips with his sleeve.

Reed glanced down automatically, and it was at that point he noticed that there were three pips where there should be two. He stared incredulously, first at the third pip and then at the captain. _"Sir?"_

Archer smiled. "Call it a wedding present. You earned it, Lieutenant Commander Reed. And you never know, even if we never have to make that call to pull you back to Tactical, one day you might get tired of R&D."

"All we need now is someone volunteerin' to cry," Trip broke in irreverently, sparing Malcolm the necessity of speech when he could hardly breathe for the lump in his throat. "Won't be a proper weddin' without somebody cryin' their eyes out."

"Isn't that the bride's mother's job, sir?" Travis pointed out. "Hoshi wants me to give her away. That makes me her daddy, doesn't it?" All four of them looked a bit dazed for a moment at this; considering the two ensigns were much of an age, it was stretching things a bit.

Trip was the first to recover. "Well I can't 'cause I'm the best man, the cap'n can't 'cause he's the legal guy, and Liz can't 'cause she's the bridesmaid. Can't ask Hoshi to on her weddin' day."

"Don't look at me, I'm the bridegroom. I'm not supposed to cry." Malcolm had regained a little of his composure by this time.

"_Somebody's _got to do it," the chief engineer said firmly. "Travis, you just got volunteered."

The helmsman opened his mouth to protest and shut it again, obviously knowing when he was cornered. He picked up a handful of paper handkerchiefs with the pretended air of one prepared to do his duty, however onerous it may be. "Pity Commander T'Pol isn't here, you could have asked her to pretend to be the bride's mother," he said brightly, after he'd dabbed at his eyes and sniffed a bit theatrically.

"Correction, Ensign. _You _could have asked her to do it. _I _don't fancy getting my knackers torn off and stamped on before my wedding night."

"Maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea," admitted Travis, laughing.

"You got that right. C'mon, Malcolm, let's get you into position."

"No, that's what I'm supposed to say to Hoshi later."

"Jeez, for a guy who went round _Enterprise _for the first six months like he'd got a duranium rod up his ass, you sure did a good job of hidin' _that_ sense of humor." Trip grabbed his elbow. "Off we go, Loo-tenant!" Habit was evidently hard to break, and Malcolm forbore to point out that that title was now inaccurate – mostly because he'd become secretly rather attached to that affectionate drawl.

"With you in just a minute!" yelled Liz from the other side of the curtain.

As Malcolm stumbled back out of the shuttle after Trip, his mind in a joyous daze, he touched the captain's arm. "Sir, weren't you supposed to be in talks at Headquarters?"

"Even the brass in a council of war get to take a break occasionally. I just coaxed Captain Hernandez into loaning me one of _Columbia_'s shuttles for the day." Archer smiled. "Important Starfleet business."

The ex-lieutenant coloured. "In the circumstances, I'm not sure that's the correct description, sir."

"On the contrary." The captain put a hand on his shoulder. "Making two of my officers very happy is a _very_ important business to me, and since I'm acting in my capacity as a representative of Starfleet, then to my mind that makes this very important Starfleet business."

"Then I can only say how grateful I –" The lump in his throat stopped him again, but the squeeze from the hand on his shoulder before it was released said that his gratitude was understood.

The three men walked up to the summit and took up position: Malcolm with Trip at his shoulder and Captain Archer facing him. Travis, of course, had remained behind to escort the bride. The sun had risen higher by this time, but the sky was still cloudless. He'd been right, earlier on: it was going to be a marvellous day, but for even more reasons than he'd imagined.

"Shouldn't somebody be playin' some music here?" demanded Trip. "'Here Comes the Bride', or somethin'?"

"Mendelssohn. 'The Wedding March'," murmured Malcolm. "But we already have music." He squinted up into the blue, where the first notes of a distant skylark were tumbling through the clear air.

"Well. Not quite what I had in mind." The chief engineer grumbled good-naturedly, but fell silent, surveying his surroundings with admiration.

"Ready or not, here we come!" called Liz moments later.

The captain coughed. "Maybe just a _little _more formal, Crewman," he said patiently, rolling his eyes in her direction.

Malcolm snapped rigidly to attention, his eyes fixed forward. Beyond the skylark's song he could hear the ceaseless murmur of the waves far below, hushing and murmuring against the base of the cliffs. The contrast between his state of mind today and what it had been on his previous visit was almost beyond description, highlighting every reason he had for gratitude. The life he'd perceived as being utterly without worth or hope back then had come to glorious fruition when he fell in love with the woman he was about to marry.

A movement on his left told him she had arrived. He wanted so much to look at her and drink in her beauty, but Captain Archer had put on his 'official Starfleet representative' expression, so he had to be content for the moment with what his peripheral vision could tell him. She was in ivory, he could see that much, but there was...

Starfleet's official representative frowned with mock sternness at him, recalling eyes that were showing an inclination to wander.

Afterwards he remembered little of the ceremony; most of it, after all, was just 'legal-ese', a language with which he had little patience except where it concerned important things like starship regulations. Not that a single word of the ceremony that made him Hoshi's husband was unimportant; it was just that he was too busy ... feeling, rather than listening. Feeling the sea breeze pushing against his face, and the sunshine on his skin, and the silky fabric of the white undershirt shifting infinitesimally against his collar bones as he breathed; then feeling Hoshi's hand in his, and the cool strength of the ring as he slipped it on to her finger. It was vital that he speak clearly, because he'd never said anything that mattered more.

_"I will."_

Then there was the wondering, wonderful feeling of Hoshi doing the same for him. Her hand felt steadier than his had done. The duranium came to rest on his finger as though it had come home.

_"I will."_

Captain Archer's voice came back into the focus of his attention, warm with affection.

_"Then I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."_

And at last he was free to look. Look properly; look and look, feeling as though he'd never get tired of looking, at _his wife._

She was in ivory silk, a dress that hugged her figure with the elegance of a lily bud; she was carrying a small bouquet of silk flowers threaded with ivory ribbon, she had delicate mother-of-pearl flower earrings in her ears, and in the hollow at the base of her throat he saw the diamond heart pendant he'd bought her for her birthday a couple of weeks ago. Her silky hair was caught back at the sides, though somehow Liz had achieved soft curls in the length of it; over the top of her head was an ornament of white flowers and pearls. Under it her face was radiant with love. He'd never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

_I'm the bridegroom. I. DO. NOT. CRY. _

But as he gathered his wife into his arms and kissed her at last, the golden morning blurred for him in a haze of tears after all.

* * *

"Just like old times, eh, Malcolm?"

Trip reprised his conjurer's act as he produced a bottle of champagne from the aft locker of the shuttlepod as they all crowded back into it for the wedding breakfast – this being a picnic put together by _Columbia'_s cook in honour of the occasion. "Thought you'd prefer this to bourbon," he added with a wink.

"Infinitely." The two of them shared a wry grin at the memory. And yet after all, Malcolm could find in himself no regret for what had happened back then; as traumatic as it had been, it had been the catalyst for a fundamental change in their relationship, allowing him to finally open up to the 'friend closer than a brother' that Trip had become.

"You haven't noticed yet, have you?" Hoshi asked him playfully, cuddling up to him.

"I've noticed you look absolutely gorgeous," he said, kissing her nose.

"Look a bit lower, stupid." She poked him in the ribs.

"I thought that part was supposed to wait till later. – Ouch!" Feigning indignation, he stepped back and looked more carefully. Apart from the hair decoration and the jewellery, there was the dress of course, and he hadn't had time to look his fill at that yet; funny, though, having the two –

_Two _rank pips on it_._

His lips curved in a proud smile. "Congratulations, Lieutenant."

She inclined her head, indicating the evidence of his similar rise in rank. "The same to you, Lieutenant Commander."

"Hell!" cried Trip. "Now I won't be able to call you plain '_Loo-tenant_' anymore!"

Malcolm turned towards him. "Well, _Commandah, _that's one thing I bloody well won't miss!"

"Aw, go tell the Klingons!" came the inelegant retort. Though the grin that accompanied it suggested it wasn't meant to be taken nearly as seriously as it sounded.

The storage spaces had been packed carefully. As well as the champagne and glasses, there was enough food for double the numbers – including, right at the bottom, a large box that was found to contain a wedding cake, complete with a depiction of _Enterprise_ iced on the top of it that had all of the men shaking their heads in admiration at its accuracy and detail.

"'With best wishes for the happy couple, from Erika Hernandez.'" Captain Archer read out the card that was tucked into the ribbon. "You're honored, you two. I shudder to think what it must have taken her to get that cook of hers to do this in the time."

"Please tell her how grateful we are, sir." Hoshi stood on tiptoe to kiss him, at which there was a general round of applause; Trip and Travis had already claimed a kiss from the bride, and Malcolm had been given his by the bridesmaid – an event which had left both of them unwontedly pink.

The bride and bridegroom cut the cake – Trip had brought along his camera to record the event, and photographed this as he had everything else – and then everyone set to work to get the celebration going. There were wedding presents, of course, the captain explained, but they'd just complicate matters here, and they'd been left at HQ for later. There would have to be a celebration on board ship, too, so that everyone else could offer their congratulations.

Laughing and talking, they unpacked the food and began eating. It was the strangest imaginable wedding breakfast, eaten with the guests disposed in the various seats around the shuttle, but as he sat on the bench and looked around him, with his new bride tucked in the curve of his arm, Malcolm thought that nothing could possibly have suited him better. It was unfortunate that T'Pol couldn't attend, but then she was even less of a party person than he was, so perhaps she wouldn't have enjoyed it all that much anyway.

As the best man, it fell to Tucker to deliver a speech; normally this should have contained a wealth of detail specifically intended to mortify the bridegroom, but much to Malcolm's relief – and possibly owing something to one or two _sotto voce _threats delivered beforehand – it was surprisingly tactful as well as both short and entertaining. Though perhaps it wasn't really so surprising, Reed reflected as Trip concluded his duties with a toast to the bridesmaid; the chief engineer might be unable to pick a decent shirt to save his life, but he was the best mate a man could wish for. The threats intended to make him behave had perhaps not been _entirely_ necessary.

Captain Archer then spoke briefly, wishing the newlyweds a long and happy life together. He also mentioned that the presence of a Starfleet shuttlepod in such an exposed location was unlikely to remain unnoticed for long, and that it would probably be best if they didn't remain there much longer, unless they really wanted to attract an awful lot of attention. "And I'm guessing that's not something you two _do_ really want on your wedding day," he ended with a smile.

"Not particularly." Hoshi smiled brilliantly at him. "I think we had enough of being celebrities when we came home after the Xindi. Now we'd rather just get on with the honeymoon in peace."

"Hear, hear!" said Malcolm, kissing her. The mention of the word 'honeymoon' had reminded him of the words 'pineapple' and 'unfinished business'.

"Well, I thought that's what you'd say. So here's _my_ wedding present to the both of you." The captain handed over an envelope. "You're booked into the honeymoon suite. We'll drop you off before we leave."

"They have a heli-pad in the grounds," added Travis, beaming. "We can put down with no trouble at all."

"And you can get the place you're staying at now to send your things on to you," chimed in Liz.

Malcolm slipped an arm around his wife, and looked around at his friends. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve any of them, but bloody hell, he wouldn't trade even one of them for their weight in latinum.

"Better act fast," advised Trip, glancing through the viewing panel on the shuttle's door. "I think we're about to get company."

The captain had evidently been right. A small crowd had gathered at a respectful distance, just at the top of the path, but it was unlikely they'd stay there indefinitely. News of an event like this would spread, too, and the next thing you knew there'd be a journalist or two or three, and there would go any chance of a peaceful and anonymous honeymoon in whatever luxurious location Archer had seen fit to select for them.

"Better take off while we can," said Travis, politely handing Liz out of the pilot's seat so he could take the controls. "They'll be safe enough at that distance. I'll make sure there's no-one any closer before I start up."

It was the work of a moment to ascertain that nobody had had the temerity to come up to the shuttle. As soon as he knew it was safe to do so, the young helmsman started the engine, and the craft lifted into the air.

* * *

Some twenty minutes later, Malcolm and Hoshi stood a short distance from the hotel's heli-pad, watching the shuttle take off again. All around them green hills enclosed the valley and its lakes in sheltering arms, creating a paradise of peace and tranquillity.

"You do realize how odd we're going to look," she said, taking his hand. "Checking into this place in our wedding clothes, with not even a suitcase."

"I'm not worried. There's nothing in a suitcase that you're going to need for the next couple of days except a toothbrush, and they'll sort that out for us if I ask nicely. We'll get our meals sent up." Holding hands, although highly satisfactory, wasn't nearly good enough; he got her into his arms instead, and kissed her. "I don't know about you, Mrs Sato-Reed, but I've got everything I need right here."

"Everything?" she said, smiling up at him lovingly.

"Oh, yes." He shifted his shoulder, where his rucksack was hanging once again. At least they had _one _item of luggage between them. "And you know one thing I really, really want to find out?"

"Tell me," she purred, leading him towards the hotel's resplendent front entrance. "I want to hear every gory detail."

"I want to find out just how much a married woman enjoys pineapple."

And – to their mutual delight – she did.

Enormously.

**The End.**


End file.
